AT&T Bold Launch Party Dates. Early November Release?

* Update: BGR posted an internal AT&T email that shows training for the Bold has been postponed indefinitely. Typically AT&T likes to do training two weeks or so out from a new device launch, so canceling now and start it up in the latter half of October would bode well with what we're hearing and the above dates. You can check out the email after the jump! RIM & AT&T should really just issue a press release already and bring us all up to speed. *

It looks like AT&T BlackBerry Bold launch parties are set for the latter half of October, and while Best Buy is currently aiming for an October 26th stock date for the Bold, we're hearing you will have to wait until early November (try November 2nd, but my fingers are still crossed for October) to actually walk into a store and pick one of these babies up for yourself.

The Bold launch party registration site also contains a nice little What Makes you Bold? video. Watching it is torture if you're still waiting for the Bold to come to you on AT&T, but it's nice smartphone eyecandy nonetheless!

AT&T Email

As you are aware, with the anticipated launch of the 3G AT&T BlackBerry Bold, RIM has committed to hold training sessions in over 40 cities. A large number of these sessions were to take place this and next week. Due to the continued uncertainty of the device launch date, we will work with RIM to reschedule these sessions to a later date.

Any representatives that have registered will be informed by email of the schedule change. No action is required from your part.

Rescheduling the training to align with a final technical acceptance for BlackBerry Bold launch will ensure that:

a) the training material can cover all the feature functionality that will be on this device at launch (at this time we don't have clarity on the status of all features).

b) handouts can be given to Dealers to reinforce the material covered

c) we will be able to provide attendees with a general availability date

c) the delivery of the material will be within one - two weeks of launch to ensure content retention and ability to practice what they learn in the field

d) the desired 30 person per session registration/attendance is achieved (training in the last week of a sales month at the end of a sales quarter should be avoided if possible)

Reader comments

AT&T Bold Launch Party Dates. Early November Release?

Some people don't really care for a 'revolutionary' device. They just want a pack load of features with a kick ass screen and a keyboard rated tops in operation underneath some serious processing power. That's all. The form factor is just fine as highly functional. ...in my opinion.

Now with Bold doing the big swan dive, weirdos here are wetting themselves over the Storm, WHICH DOES AWAY WITH THE VERY ADVANTAGE YOU WERE ALL SAYING BLACKBERRIES HAVE OVER THE iPHONE -- A PHYSICAL KEYBOARD.

I have used the Storm's touchpad (but not on the Storm), and is more of a PAD than a touchscreen. It's sticky, icky, clicky weird.

The Storm is a toy, and I cannot imagine any true BlackBerry power user to take to it. You will NOT like it.

But now you may have to learn to LIVE with it since the Bold is biting the big one.

I have also tried the Bold. Very, very nice. But hardly revolutionary.

Meanwhile, my own iPhone "toy" has its 3G, GPS, Wifi, touchscreen, etc. while BlackBerry devices keep getting pushed further back and further back, making their inevitable disappointment to those who finally get them in their hands all the worse.

After reading over 30 threads on this issue (clearly only a small minority of total threads), I see it this way:

At&t screwed up and made bad network decisions uncovered by the iPhone rollout. This is a confirmed given. Yesterday I saw 7 At&t support vans and trucks parked next to a grassy area in my neighborhood. (Never saw that before outside of the At&t parking lot.) I asked the gentlemen, who were eating lunch, what's up. They all laughed and told me that they are redoing work area by area on work previously considered complete on the cell network. I asked if this work is being done to support future 3g phones that also have high bandwidth needs. They said, "Absolutely." You can't argue with an honest technician with a printed order/task form in his hand explaining what they need to do and why. (Sorry, no camera phone; just a BB7230) So.....At&t has without a doubt and unarguably screwed up, and is now trying to fix things.

Also....RIM shares the blame. They have placed such a push on the Storm that a lot of resources are being directed to complete that device as a priority. The result is a delay to other OS updates for the other devices. RIM also screwed up in its long term planning. Let's face it: RIM has an old OS that needs to be better designed to take better advantage of any landscape changes. More forethought on the OS side of things may have avoided At&t's dirty-little-network-problem. The company needs this debacle as a shot in the arm for lessons forgotten and lessons to be re-learned.

So, we consumers are looking at a perfect storm (pun intended) of bad network decisions, slow product development, and reduced resources to make sure everything works.

Sounds like a long wait for a new product might have been written on the wall long before these threads.

Disclaimer: I really Really REally REAlly REALly REALLY want the Bold. ....and I AM one of the nerds droolling, and waiting, and wishing, and waiting, and hoping, and waiting, and hating and waiting, and waiting and waiting and waiting and w......

I was really done. I had enough of the AT&T /RIM spin b*llsh*t. I was ready to jump to Verizon grab the Google phone and rid myself of AT&T once and for all...
Today I had an epiphany.
I was walking threw the fancy tourist mall today and at a lonely kiosk in the middle of a corridor was BOLD. First one I have seen up close. I convinced the salesman into opening the cabinet and letting me roll the trackball around for a couple of minutes. Guess he thought he had a shot at the big sale of the day... LOL SUCKER!!! He was asking, ready for this $1200 USD.
Anyway knowing under no circumstance was I going to talk myself into buying it, I did give it a 2 minute test drive.
Result? F*ckin AWESOME!!! I am always skeptical of overly praising reviews of anything and the hype on BOLD made it seem impossible to live up to. I am glad to report that BOLD is EVERYTHING and MORE than what I have read.
The screen was like watching a mini HD TV. Everything I tried worked exceptionally fast and I was amazed just how much different and better everything was on BOLD than on Curve which I like very much...
Anyway, I am sold, I can wait another month to get my hands on BOLD. I put a little something in my AT&T guys pocket to insure I get number 1 when it arrives in Sin City. Cross your fingers, T minus 32 days...

Just a comment on launch dates.. I attended the Rogers bold launch party in Calgary middle of July. Yes, that was 6 weeks before rogers finally launched the device.
Launch party does not necessarily equate immediate launch.

That being said, for all you waiting down there, hope you get it soon.. I love mine. Rock solid, stable, never dropped a call.

MY COMPANY HAS COMMUNICATIONS WITH THE GLOBAL ACCOUNT MANAGER AT AT&T, THOMAS J. DOCKUM, AND HE SAYS THAT THE BOLD WILL COME OUT RIGHT AFTER THE FIRST LAUNCH DATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
PLEASE PPL--THIS IS NOT A LIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We'll it's about time something official is out! My AT&T rep will be happy to hear this. God only knows how much of a pain in the behind I have been. Just like that Simpson's commercial... Are we there yet...Is it in yet! Is it in yet!

I am in no way knockin' any other country or city but I still cannot believe that New York!!!! Basically the biggest (not in size) city in the world, the infamous NYC!!!!! Is listed as the last release date!!!! WTF!!!!!

While I elated to hear actual product promotion and advertisement via AT&T, I also think this is a crock of you know what. This phone was supposed to released (allegedly) in June, then July, then August, then Sept, then October, and now it appears November? RIMM stock has gone to the tank its no wonder. I also suspect that there will still be glitches in this thing no matter when its released....For all of the hoopla, this thing better change my life, otherwise I'll be thoroughly disappointed...

ready to be disappointed. Save yourself the headache and buy a Curve. BOLD NOW GETTING OLD, should be the headline to this Blog. By the time this thing is released, it will be old technology. The Storm is already running a newer OS and will be released at the same time. Yet another reason I left AT&T back in the day!

Don't be knockin the Bold till you have it in your hands! Just cuz ATT is bustin our balls!! That has nothin to do with the Bold's capabilities! Every cellphone down to the 1st generation cellphone is just an upgraded & better version from the last!!!

UGH....... this is completely ridiculous. I'm not even on AT&T and they're making me mad!!!!! that means it will be a heck of a lot later for basically ANY new BB to come to Sprint! ahhh!!

And the only reason I'm not interested in switching to VZW for the Storm is because I'm totally not interested in owning any type of touchscreen phone. It's just not me. This makes me sick!!!! And we STILL don't even know the prices....

I must say that both the Bold and Storm look awesome. Has anyone heard whether AT&T will sell the Storm?? Although the Bold looks great, I have to say that given a choice, I would take the Storm. I have been a long-term AT&T customer and for a series of reasons can't switch away. Any insights?

The Storm is a touch screen device. I do agree with you that the Storm do look really nice and sleek, but after my experience with the iPhone's touch screen typing, I have come to HATE touch screen devices.

When i hear the word "EXCLUSIVELY" that pretty much means "only".... so is this true? 1st i hear that the bold well be release to AT&T 1st, but does that now mean that no other phone carrier will receive this handset? Im on t-mobile network and not only do we get the shaft when it comes to new phones "cause they never ever get new phones 1st" but we seem to be "banned" from the bold click.... brings tear drops to my eye when i saw the word "EXCLUSIVELY FOR AT&T" twice in this video....

I got tired of waiting and have gone to the iphone as have two other friends waiting for the bold. Let me be clear, I do not make my living from email,so the iphones superior web browsing works for me. I have a BB 8830 for corporate email, phone etc.

Three things peeps:
1) Obviously this is AT&T's attempt to take away press from the Storm.
2) If you want a Bold today, here's what you do:
A)Download 4.5 OS to your 8800 or Curve. Not much diff than 4.6 the Bold is running.
B)Download the Bold theme and Mr Copelands little Bold tunes.
Now you have yourself a Bold.

3) What is all the Bold hype about here people??? The Bold is an enormous Curve with fancy speakers and a pretty screen. It looks and works like any other Blackberry we've seen. I just don't get it. Where is the innovation here? Ok, it has a "leather" like back...you got me.

I think we all know what RIMs real jewel this Fall is the Storm. A product that has never been done before by RIM. Eat your heart out Bold, you are no Storm. You are nothing more than a Curve on steroids and we all know steroids are bad umkay.

And WOW what a coincidence, the Storm is to be released the first of Nov too!! Come on people AT&T is taking you for a ride!!!

You should do your research before making a statement that the Bold is just an enormous Curve. The Bold has a better screen (HD like), and yes, fancy speakers, way faster processor, a lot more on board memory, and what most people are crazy over, 3G...or should I say 3.5G. There are more to the Bold than the features I listed, and the Curve cannot be compared to that. Oh yea, the Storm is just another iPhone on steroids. lol

I can almost bet this is like when Nokia introduced one of the best phones to the market and a year later it was put on AT&T network as a new device and then it had a plague of problems that were blamed by sales people on the Nokia phone itself as was told to me several times by tech support and salesman when insider internal emails from AT&T were leaked showing it was to do with the all mighty Ma Bell corporate abuse and laziness and poor quality of their firmware. Its seems this is the case with the wait on the bold. It works everywhere else without battery problems so how is it blamed here in the US for a delay because of "Blackberry" issues? or problems delaying its arrival? Unlikely its blackberry's fault. More like AT@T fault. I mean come on even the "Storm" is coming out on Verizon before the bold does? whats up with that? AT&T sticking it to us once again. Blackberry if your listening I am on your side. I am wanting to be a first time Blackberry customer and I am impressed with what I have seen but your partner AT&T is making you loose people from what I can tell.

Probably because they have much smaller user bases with far fewer system resources to support and a smaller geographical region to maintain consistent coverage over. I would think it would be a lot easier to use other countries as test markets to find out exactly how much system resources are actually needed rather than launching another bandwidth hog on your largest consumer base's network and screwing it up for everyone - including non-smartphone customers as well.

It looks like smart business to me. Besides, all the delays and complaining by people who expect to have the latest and greatest yesterday, for free, and perfectly working does nothing more than offer free marketing and ramp up awareness by consumers of a new product coming to market. The longer they make people wait, more awareness of the product is generated in the marketplace due to people talking about it, pining for it and casting projections. They get two things from this:
1. A true sense of the marketplace and consumer opinion on features and performance without the expense of marketing research and surveying
2. Free advertising on websites, blogs and message boards where people look at published specs (that could change either way) and tout how great the product is before it comes to market.

It really sucks that AT&T is the only company to receive the Bold first and then the other carrier must wait until sometime in the new year. Since the great delay, I think this phone should be available to all carriers once it is release. I've been waiting on this phone and think I'm going to get another phone through my carrier T-Mobile.

Man.. I've been waiting for this phone for three months!! They just keep postponing their release date. I am almost ready to get some other phone instead!! I heard that AT&T is holding back this phone because of Iphone 3G. They want to give iphone more time before a new competitor arrived. Yet, it's not cool to keep waiting for another month!!!!

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